Silvia Sommer

Silvia Sommer, born in Vienna in 1944, began studying piano at the age of eight at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (renamed the University of Music in 1970), first with Marianne Lauda and then with Josef Dichler. She composed her first piano pieces at the age of eleven. Starting in 1959, she continued her studies in harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Alfred Uhl. In 1970, she received the City of Vienna’s Encouragement Award and passed her diploma examination in piano. This was followed by numerous commissioned compositions and radio recordings, as well as concerts as a pianist performing her own works. In 1982, she accepted an invitation to the “Encontre de Compositors III” for contemporary music in Palma de Mallorca and received the Promotion Prize from the State of Lower Austria. In 1994, she was awarded first prize in the Franz Josef Reinl Foundation’s composition competition and was a prize winner at the “International Composition Competition for String Orchestras in Honor of Ernst Bloch” in Lugano (Switzerland) for her composition “No sunshine today.”

She has composed works commissioned by numerous Austrian ensembles and festivals. Her catalog of works includes choral, orchestral, and chamber music, songs, and solo pieces, including over 200 piano compositions. She has also written light music as well as music for television and film.

Silvia Sommer’s music cannot be categorized under any particular compositional style; it requires no explanation or analysis and is comprehensible solely through its accessibility. Diverse and varied, often rooted in tonality, her music conveys programmatic or critical messages as well as a zest for life and humor. A key feature of her compositions is the deliberate blurring of the boundaries between serious and light music—often within a single work—which demonstrates her forward-thinking approach to overcoming this traditional division. 

http://www.sommermusic.at/biografie/